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2 Wile: A Programme for Sex Instruction. 

similar crimes against the person have their strongest roots in 
the poverty of the majority of the community as measured by 
the standard of living that has been established by this confer- 
ence and in the inequalities of our present industrial system and 
does not originate in an inherent viciousness of those who fall 
as victims in the strife. 

Society reaps the whirlwind in venereal disease, unnecessary 
blindness, insanity, marital infelicity, divorces, desertions, in- 
validism of soldiers and sailors, the preventable mutilation of 
women and men. In truth society pays for its shortcomings, 
just as the body of the individual suffers from malnutrition, alco- 
holism and sexual abuses. 

An opportunity for the removal of at least a large portion 
of the burden borne by society lies in a wholesale education of 
the community as to the relation of the social life and the social 
evils, so-called. Organizations for the betterment of the masses, 
churches, schools, labor unions, women's clubs, Y. M. C. As., 
medical societies must unite in a widespread campaign for public 
enlightenment upon the problems that are generally termed the 
sex-problems. The good example set by the various societies for 
sanitary and moral prophylaxis in stimulating public opinion 
must be followed. Not the least of this work of education must 
be in the hands of the physicians who at present are in possession 
of the most information upon the subject, at least in its physical 
aspects. The responsibility for the present general ignorance 
about the entire sex problem in its widest application to the 
affairs of the world musfbe placed upon society as a whole that 
has been countenancing a double standard of morality and re- 
fusing to listen to the words of those who have sought to show 
its error. 

In the evolution of the character of a child two large influ- 
ences are involved : that of the home and that of the companion- 
ships of childhood. In the accumulation of information regard- 
ing sex, the home as a factor has unfortunately been almost 
negligible. Parental timidity, or shall I say cowardice, has made 
it difficult for parents to impart the information regarding re- 
production or even the differences of sexes to their children. An 
unintelligent false modesty has placed the taboo on all references 
to the development of the emotional and physical side of sex as 
it seeks for expression at various times in the period of life from 
infancy to adolescence. The average child of to-day secures the 
garbled, befuddled, vulgar ideas that he prizes so highly but 






Reprinted from Archives of Pediatrics, February, 1912. 
E. B. Treat & Co., Publishers, 241-243 W. 23d St, New York. 

A PROGRAMME FOR SEX INSTRUCTION.* 

BY IRA S. WILE, M.S., M.D., 
\\ 
New York City. 

"The concealment of truth is the only indecorum known to 
science," wrote Westermarck. In no part of human affairs is 
this more true than in the veil of mystery that is thrown around 
the problems of sex and its correlated phenomena. 

While it is generally correct that every cause is an effect and 
every effect is a cause, careful thought will show that the sex 
problems arise from two fundamental causes. In the last analy- 
sis the main problems that are of interest to a conference on 
charities and corrections arise from a clash of temptation and 
wills. Society presents one cause, the temptation, through the 
real social evils of overwork and underpay and delayed marriages, 
poor-housing facilities with the consequent trials of room-con- 
gestion and lack of personal privacy, child labor and the inter- 
mingling of children and adults under unnatural conditions and 
at dangerous times, inadequate opportunity for the expression of 
the energy of the human species and the train of horrors like 
dance halls, saloons, boat excursions, family unhappiness and the 
desire to be somebody and have something that is beyond the 
daily measure of earnings. All these are but a small part of the 
ills that can be remedied only through the interaction of the 
aggregate of individuals that is termed society. This forms the 
soil from which the sexual weed emanates. 

The seed lies within the individual and the fertility of the 
weed depends upon the essential nature of the seed as gotten 
from its parents and the character of the soil upon which it is to 
fall. The will of the individual is the second important factor 
that demands consideration. The development of the will of the 
child is largely in the power of the parents. Children are largely 
what their parents make them, though their character is con- 
stantly undergoing changes due to the reaction to environment. 
This factor of character development may be guided through 
adequate education for which the parents should be held respon- 
sible. The truths pertaining to sex must not be concealed any 
longer. 

It is not my purpose to consider the origin of external tempta- 
tion save to remark that the White Slave Traffic, prostitution and 



♦Read before the twelfth New York State Conference on Charities and Correc- 
tions, Watertown, N. Y., October 18, 1911. 






Wile: A Programme for Sex Instruction. 



dares not even dream of in the vicinity of his parents from his 
associates at school, or on the streets, or from the atrocious book- 
lets, issued by some charlatan, that have been placed into his 
hands for the purpose of creating those false impressions that 
the child hesitates to talk over with his parents. The home of 
to-day is largely responsible for the weaknesses of instruction 
.with reference to the development of the physiology of sex and 
the relation of the individual to the generations unborn. 

Parents must come to realize that sex is at the basis of a 
proper appreciation of many phases of life. The idea of crea- 
tion as a religious concept is essentially a sex-problem. Biblical 
literature abounds in allusions to sexual questions that can be 
appreciated only by the best informed readers. Mythology can- 
not be read nor understood by the uninformed. Chivalry de- 
mands sex knowledge for its comprehension. Literature from 
the Canterbury Tales to Balzac, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Sudermann, or 
the novelists whose names are not to be handed down to pos- 
terity but whose works are for the multitude of to-day, centers 
about the relations of the sexes. Plautus, Terence, Sophocles, 
Shakespeare, the modern dramatists make the most of that phase 
of life that is so frequently termed the human interest. From 
the Nibelung's Ring to Pelleas and Melisande, an initiation into 
the laws of sex is essential in order to intelligently interpret the 
operas. Art, painting and sculpture, supplies numerous themes 
that have arisen from the depths of sex experience. All this 
parents know and still they close their eyes and refuse to see the 
light or to illumine the path for their children. Parents have a 
tremendous responsibility to their children and no less a re- 
sponsibility to society. Parental protection is lost in this field of 
education, where the relation between parent and child should 
be the closest. 

When should parental instruction begin? When the child 
first expresses a desire to know as evidenced by a question. At 
three years, or four or five, whatever the age may be that finds 
the youngster seeking information from the parent from whom 
all other knowledge has been gotten for the asking. Whence 
comes the baby? What a natural query. The usual answer is 
most unnatural, for the parent fails usually to tell the truth if 
any attempt is made to reply in terms other than to tell the child 
to run away as mother is very busy. The child sooner or later 
takes the unanswered question to some one who will answer it 
even though the informant is only a playmate who knows little 



4 Wile : A Programme for Sex Instruction. 

more about the matter. The first break in the confidence that 
should exist is thus easily made. At times an evasive or false 
answer drives the child to seek more light and then the parent 
is driven back to another falsehood until finally the child's mind 
grasps the inconsistencies of the replies given upon various occa- 
sions or realizes that the parent does not desire to discuss such 
questions any more. The sense of secrecy arises and then the. 
child feels ashamed of the subject and cannot bring itself to talk 
frankly with the parent. The opportunity of the child's life has 
been lost. Henceforth the child must be left to its own devices 
to ascertain the facts that it wishes to learn, from the playmates, 
from the gang mates, from pornographic writings, from the char- 
latan's fear instilling booklet, from misinterpreted dictionary 
definitions, from posters, lying advertisements, from vicious as- 
sociates, from cruel traditions and unholy advice, from reading 
forbidden books and seeing forbidden plays. 

Too frequently one hears of the advisability of teaching sex 
hygiene at puberty. This is too late to begin. The average child 
of the city has the major part of his sex 'information, or rather 
misinformation, long before puberty. To wait for this time is 
to make the instruction more difficult because the parent who 
has never spoken to his child regarding the origin of life before 
puberty scarcely ever can summon up sufficient courage to 
broach the subject at this time, when the child has also had cre- 
ated the barrier of shame. In addition, the problem is more 
difficult, because it is necessary to clear the child's mind of the 
erroneous ideas before it is possible to establish the weighty 
truths that are to be imparted. Innocence and ignorance are not 
the same. The so-called innocent child of twelve years of age 
is well versed in sex-lore. The training in sex hygiene must be 
begun at the earliest possible age. The crux of the problem lies 
not in the few lectures that are at times suggested for the high 
schools and the colleges. Character is too far developed at this 
age and habits for good or for bad are well established ; in fact, 
irretrievable harm may already have befallen the child. The 
education must be started at the earliest opportunity. 

The public school has long been urged as the proper place at 
which to have the instruction imparted. As far as the element- 
ary school is concerned, I believe this is an error, as the subject 
can be better handled by the individual parents for the individ- 
ual children. The average teacher of to-day is not fitted to teach 
the subject. The age variations in a single grade, the variations 
in mentality, the differences in sex precocity, not to mention sex 



Wile : A Programme for Sex Instruction. 5 

experience make the teaching of sex hygiene a very difficult prob- 
lem for the school, even though the instruction is given to the 
children of each sex separately by a teacher of the same sex. 
The function of the school is to give children such instruction as 
cannot be imparted at the home, but instruction in sex hygiene is 
naturally a part of home training although it represents a largely 
untried field of parental endeavor. 

The school may be of assistance in instructing parents how 
to give the teachings to their children or in special cases at the 
request of the parents a teacher might take up the question in- 
volved with individual children. As class instruction it seems 
to me undesirable at present. The school by giving adequate 
teaching in general hygiene and by affording an opportunity for 
acquiring some fundamental training in biology will be doing its 
share in making possible intelligent training as to the laws of 
sex as they must be interpreted at puberty and thereafter. The 
entire teaching must be characterized by frankness and honesty. 
The amount of time now given to the question of alcohol would 
be spent to far greater advantage were part of it given to the 
demonstration of the development of plants and animals in ac- 
cordance with the biological principles involved. Only with 
trained teachers and adequate text-books will this become pos- 
sible, and then probably only in the highest grade or in the sec- 
ondary schools. 

And so I am harking back to the home and to the parents. 
Honesty and frankness, courage and conviction, and the goal of 
instruction is attainable. The purpose of such teaching in the 
home is to establish an intellectual morality, not founded upon 
fear but upon a correct conception as to the relations of the sexes 
and the necessity of personal purity for the advancement of the 
human race. 

Many will promptly say knowledge will not bring about all 
this. Possibly not but it is worth a trial. At least parents will 
be in a position to say that they have at least attempted to help 
their children develop along the proper lines that make for sex 
purity. If along with the training in the homes the social causes 
that go to make the great temptation are gradually obliterated, 
I am optimist enough to believe that the physical, mental, and 
moral havoc that now besets us on all sides will be very largely 
eliminated. Ignorance of the sex responsibilities and the dan- 
gers to the community that have resulted must be eradicated. 

As a result of an experience covering several years in the 
actual work of giving instruction in sex problems to classes of 



6 Wile : A Programme for Sex Instruction. 

the so-called tenement-house mothers of various nationalities, to 
mothers and fathers of children in the schools of New York, to 
social workers, to classes of boys in groups varying in age from 
nine to twenty-one, to school teachers, my plan for instruction 
has been evolved along practical lines. 

For the purpose of convenience I have set three age periods 
for which different types of sex instruction must be given in 
order to secure the best results. First comes the age of my- 
thology; second the age of chivalry; third, the age of civic 
awakening. Beginning with the child at its earliest age, a plan of 
sex education may be followed that will result in the main- 
tenance of the confidences of the child and the inculcation of the 
sex ideals that can be best established through rational sex in- 
struction continuing over the entire life of the child. 

The age of mythology constitutes that period of child life 
that is particularly keen in imagination. It represents the period 
when the witch and the fairy, Hansel and Gretel, or the giant 
and the dwarf, the goblins and the elves make the little eyes grow 
big with astonishment and wonder. Raggylug and all the animal 
creations are living in the child's domain. The child world is 
peopled with strange creatures that are most real. Mentally the 
fairy tale, the romance, the animal story, and Nature wonders 
supply the best intellectual pabulum. It is the wonder age and 
question follows question in the pursuit of information. At this 
time the child is first asking the parent for light as to the differ- 
ences between boys and girls, where does the baby come from 
and at the same time is prattling about the mother cat and the 
baby cats or the kittens. The main factor necessary for sex 
instruction at this age is the determination of the parent to an- 
swer honestly every question that is asked by the child for at this 
age the child has all to learn. Giving vague or evasive answers 
only puts off the hour of combat. A correct start having been 
made there will never again be any hesitation or embarrassment 
on the part of the parent — the child will not feel confused or 
embarrassed unless the parent creates such a state of mind through 
a discipline that makes the child self-conscious. The second 
necessity is the possession of some fundamental facts that may 
be interpreted to the child through the medium of story or imag- 
inative tale. The child easily learns the relation between baby 
and mother. The mother dog and the father dog, the cow and 
the calf, the horse and the mare and the foal, the lion, the lioness 
and the cub, the relation of the father, mother and baby soon 
come to be distinct concepts of the child. The second idea that is 



Wile: A Programme for Sex Instruction. 7 

readily absorbed is the egg, and the chick that comes therefrom, 
and the mother hen that laid the egg. The dependence of life 
upon the egg seems a large problem for the child to solve, but 
the youngsters grasp it easily. The third step to be taken is to 
show the sex organization of plants. The planting of a little 
oats or grass seed will serve for the lesson. The little green 
shoots are called the baby oats and the idea of the baby plant 
coming from a seed is implanted upon the fertile child mind. 
It is but a short step to show the child the mother plant whence 
came the seed. The identity of the seed and the egg as the source 
of life, once appreciated there is a well established foundation 
for teaching the origin of human life. To go a step further, one 
can teach the child about the boys and girls that live together 
within the walls made of petals. The masculine nature of the 
stamens and the essential feminity of the pistils can be easily 
explained in terms of plays and games that the child knows. The 
modes of transference of the pollen and the fertilization of the 
seed that may be shown always to be in the female part of the 
flower lays an excellent foundation for the expansion of the 
sexual themes through the years to come. It must not be imag- 
ined that this brief suggestion is to be the work of a day. It 
must not be forced but should grow day by day and merely for 
the purpose of enlightening the child without creating any morbid 
feelings or a craving for unnatural knowledge. 

Gradually the child outgrows the age of mythology and enters 
the age of chivalry. There is no sharp line of demarcation of 
the two periods nor can any age be given when the transition 
occurs. The age of chivalry is really a prepubertal period. The 
child's body is beginning to take on new growth, the sexual func- 
tions are beginning to expand, the emotional side is unfolding 
at a very rapid pace. It is the glorious age of self-appreciation 
and a time when the child has the largest impulses for getting 
out to help in the work of the world but can merely dream. The 
actual expression of the sexual development may be marked 
by the intensification of affection for the family. Mother, sister 
and brother are terms that take on a fuller meaning. It is the 
time that the boy thinks that he really is a man when his mother 
asks him to take her around the corner at seven o'clock in the 
evening as her protector. He is a sort of hero seeking worlds 
to conquer. The blood begins to surge through his head at the 
reference to one of his feminine schoolmates. The society of 
girls is desired and their company is sought and the party days 
are at hand with their dangerous period of amorous games. The 



8 Wile: A Programme for Sex Instruction. 

girls are blossoming out into rounded form and their thoughts 
too are expanding. This is the time of "the lady bountiful. ,, 
The desire to become a trained nurse, to enter a nunnery, to 
found an institution for the salvation of unregenerate felines or 
to be possessed of untold wealth for the betterment of mankind 
fills the day with joy. It is the age of the romantic walk and the 
day of looking with rapturous glances at the handsome features 
of the matinee idol, whose face graces the chiffoniers. It is the 
time when competition in the battle for favors manifests itself 
and the parent is accused of not understanding the child's feel- 
ings or even life. It is the day of the most dangerous gang life 
for boys and girls. The desire for independence, the recog- 
nition of sex class feeling, the old reticence on the part of par- 
ents to talk on the problems of puberty makes the source of in- 
formation outside of the home. By a system of graduated in- 
struction this period of chivalry has no terrors for the parent. 
Conversation is frank and confidence is retained and the child 
is protected from the most malicious influences that are sur- 
rounding it at this time of life. The emotional characteristics 
of the individual child are watched and guided through the mazes 
of conflicting sensations that attack the child at puberty. The 
knowledge of plants and animals that has been acquired through 
observation or by school teaching is all of use in explaining the 
natural functional phenomena that slowly transform the more 
or less sexless child into a creature that is sex conscious and views 
himself as the parents' equal. No attempt is to be made to de- 
velop a sexual and sensual child. The light that is shed upon 
the sex problems in the home banishes the foulness of mind 
that is engendered by the loseness and lack of intelligent hand- 
ling of the questions at the present time. A strong appeal can 
be made upon the chivalric side of child nature. The child can 
well be made to understand pride in family and self-respect as 
factors that are to be considered in the daily conduct of one sex 
toward the opposite sex. The necessity of personal cleanliness, 
the healthfulness of exercise and outdoor sports must be accen- 
tuated. The pernicious influence of smutty stories, lascivious 
literature, immodest attire, vulgar dancing demand especial at- 
tention without laying any stress upon the subjects so as to give 
them undue prominence as factors in the child's life. Great cau- 
tion is required so as to avoid the serious danger of arousing 
morbid desires or stimulating latent feelings that have not yet 
forced themselves upon consciousness. 

The period of civic awakening in turn marks a further de- 



Wile: A Programme for Sex Instruction. 9 

velopment of character. The child in beginning adolescence ap- 
preciates that it is part of a community. The thoughts of future 
marriage already occupy a share of the mental horizon. The 
understanding of the relation of the individual to the community 
or the state is slowly coming to play a part in the individual's 
life. The desire to vote, to have a home of one's own, to take 
a place in the affairs of the world marks the arrival of the child 
to a plane of emotions that will enable a parent to make an ap- 
peal to the altruistic sentiments. The relation of personal purity 
to the welfare of the state, the dangers of venereal disease not 
to the erring youth but to the innocent community or individual 
as the future wife or children or friends makes a strong impres- 
sion upon the adolescent. The information that has been given 
during the previous years of life are recapitulated and again in- 
terpreted in terms of duty to the state and responsibility to the 
community. It is a striking thought to an adolescent to realize 
that he has a responsibility for the health and welfare of the 
community and that his personal life has bound up in it the life 
and health and happiness of many other persons. The argument 
makes an appeal to the highest motives and the best thought of 
the adolescent and tends to serve as a keystone to the arched 
will that has been in course of development throughout the life 
of the individual. 

This program of instruction is personal and established 
through personal parental instruction. Books are not of much 
value during the early years of life and often, if given to the 
children during the age of chivalry do considerable harm be- 
cause they awaken thoughts for which the child is not prepared. 
Some of the books are distinctly morbid and tend to give chil- 
dren false impressions that are confusing in the light of their 
lack of experience with actual sex life. Books may even create 
a desire for personal experiences that are fraught with danger. 
Special books in the hands of parents are most valuable for pur- 
poses of adequate instruction. 

Sex instruction should be undertaken by every conscientious 
parent. Knowledge is power for good or for evil. The use to 
which sex knowledge is to be put depends upon the develop- 
ment of the will of the child so that upon the basis of correct 
instruction as to sex physiology, psychology and purpose it may 
know evil and right and elect to live voluntarily and gladly a life 
that will be no menace to himself, his parents, his family or the 
community of which as a child he is such an essential part. 
230 West Ninety-seventh Street. 



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